


still breathing

by more_than_melody



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, Post-Ishval Civil War, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Royai - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:55:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29016987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/more_than_melody/pseuds/more_than_melody
Summary: “I understand you're worried about him,” she says. “But this is going to take time.”Chris nods slowly, exhaling smoke. “I told him not to go off and fight in that damn war,” she mutters.Riza meets Roy's foster mother for the first time.
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye & Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 9
Kudos: 91





	still breathing

_ And if you're still breathing, you're the lucky ones _

_ 'cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs _

_ setting fire to our insides for fun _

Youth - Daughter

* * *

  
  


  
  


The phone rings. 

  
  


  
  


RIza is half asleep over a cup of coffee – it's early in the morning and she has not slept well. She answers it anyway.

“Hello?”

It's Hughes. She had given him the number for Rebecca's place – Roy too – although she didn't expect him to actually use it. 

“Hawkeye?” His voice is steady on the other end of the line. 

“Isn't it a bit early for phone calls?” she asks. It's not yet eight. Rebecca is in the bathroom, getting ready for work. 

Rebecca sticks her head out of the bathroom, fumbling with an earring. 

“Is it for me?”  
“No,” Riza calls back. 

Hughes is waiting.  
“Sorry about that,” she says, returning to the call. “What can I do for you?”

A pause, a breath on the other side. “It's Roy.”

They've only been back from the front two weeks – she doesn't even have an apartment yet – she's been sleeping on Rebecca's couch. A month of leave she has until she has to report at home office. 

It's not that she hasn't wondered what Roy has been doing – but she is afraid to call him. Her mouth feels dry every time she thinks of the promise she dragged out of him and she's not sure if she's ready to confront that yet. It's not that she doesn't want her tattoo destroyed but just thinking about the flames makes her stomach clench -

Still, something in Hughes' voice has her chest tight and her fingernails biting into her thigh. 

“Is something wrong?”

A heavy exhale. 

“Well – his mother called me. She's worried about him.”

That's less surprising.

“This isn't easy for any of us,” she says. “He's not -”

“I'm worried too, based on what she said. She was hoping I could do something for him but I've tried that – it doesn't seem to do much good.”

She's silent for a long minute, considering, breathing. She relaxes her hand against her leg. 

“I know I don't really know your history together but I thought -”  
“No, you don't.” Her voice is hard and cool and it takes an effort to soften it before she speaks again. “But you were right to call. I'll see what I can do.”

“Thanks, Hawkeye. I owe you.”

He leaves her with the address before the line goes dead. 

Rebecca is standing in the doorway of the kitchen, watching the exchange. 

“Trouble in paradise?” her friend asks. 

Riza grimaces, taking a long sip of her coffee. “If that's what you want to call it. Looks like I'll be gone at least part of the day.”

“Let me know if you need anything,” Rebecca says. “I'm glad you won't just be sitting here by your self all day but -” 

Riza has talked to her, at least about some of it. She hasn't had much choice – her nightmares have woken Rebecca too, and that's not something she can just brush off. Rebecca is right to worry. 

“I'll be fine,” Riza says with a confidence she doesn't feel.

She leaves the rest of her coffee and gets dressed.

It still feels strange to wear civilian clothes – all of the ones she has belong to an earlier, more comfortable version of herself. She puts on a sweater and pants that feel casual enough and returns to the kitchen, where Rebecca is making a second pot of coffee. 

The apartment is quaint and charming, in a way that Riza is at least a little envious of. There are several plants near the window, the dishes delicate with a blue, floral pattern and framed artwork hung on the wall over the sofa. Riza has never had a home that was comfortable quite like this, each piece chosen deliberately in accordance to her own tastes. 

She's not even sure what that would look like for her. Not yet. She kept precious little from the house where she grew up and none of those things had been chosen by her either. 

“Will I see you for dinner?” Rebecca asks as Riza pulls her jacket on over the sweater. 

“I expect so,” she says. “I'll call if that changes.”

  
  


  
  


  
  


She's heard plenty of stories from him about the bar, when he lived with her and her father. Still, she's never laid eyes upon it before.

When she walks through the front door she realizes they're not yet open for the day – at nine am it's not much of a surprise, but she hadn't considered what a bar might look like before nighttime. The front room is empty, watery morning light coming through the windows in long beams. The tables are all clean, the wood of the bar gleaming. Behind the bar are dozens and dozens of liquor bottles, light striking off the molded glass.

A woman sticks her head through a doorway to the right moments after she shuts the door. 

“You must be Riza.”

The woman who greets her is powerfully built, clad in an old velvet dressing gown, her dark hair streaked with grey in long tangles across her shoulders. She takes a drag on a cigarette and the smoke coils through one of the shafts of light. 

Riza tucks back a loose strand of her own hair and holds out her hand. 

“Yes ma'am,” she says.

“Maes warned me you'd be coming,” the woman says, shaking her hand firmly. Her voice is gravelly and rich, like it belongs to an old jazz singer, as velvety as her robe. “When he said Hawkeye I didn't realize he meant you.”

“Oh -” Riza is suddenly self conscious. This must be Roy's foster mother. 

“I know we've never met, but I've heard plenty about you.”

“I could say the same,” Riza says. 

“I didn't realize you had military ambitions. Nothing Roy said ever gave me that impression.”  
“Yes, well, I didn't really plan on it -” Despite her casual dress she still looks like a soldier. It hadn't been that way before. 

“I take it something made a strong case for it, then?” the woman asks, a shrewd look on her face. 

Riza hesitates, not sure what to say to that. _Yes, your son told me the military would help people and now here we are, three years later, veterans of a campaign we're going to spend the rest of our lives paying for._

“Call me Chris,” the woman says, letting the question lie unanswered. “Roy's my nephew – or my son, I suppose. Depends on how much he's pissing me off at the time.”

Chris laughs and Riza smiles at least. 

“Is everything okay?” she asks. 

Chris's expression is somber. “He won't talk to anyone. I don't know that it's good for him to be left alone so much but it's what he wants. I thought it might help if someone else tried talking to him – I've tried myself but I don't think his mother is what he needs right now.”

Riza's smile is thin and sharp as a razor. “Don't worry,” she says. “He won't turn me away.”

Chris raises one eyebrow. “No,” she says slowly. “I don't suppose he will.”

  
  


  
  


She's directed through the back of the bar and up a flight of narrow stairs. Here is where they live – a living space full of worn, overstuffed furniture and thick, patterned carpets. Family photos hang on the walls among paintings and prints of rich landscapes.

It feels intimate to look too closely so she doesn't – she continues up the stairs to the second room on the left.

When she opens the door the room is dark and it takes a minute for her eyes to adjust enough to make out anything, even with the faint light from the hallway. 

He's lying in the narrow bed, pillow drawn up over his head, curtains shut tight. The air feels dead and stale.

“Go away,” he says as she shuts the door. 

“Don't think I'm going to be so easily intimidated, sir,” she says. 

That gets his attention. He throws off the pillow, looking up at her with one bleary eye.

“What are you doing here?” 

His voice is as dusty as the air in the room, which feels thick with cobwebs. It barely sounds like him.

“Is this how you're planning to spend your month of leave?” she asks, not bothering to answer his question. 

“I -”

“Oh sit up,” she snaps, faking an irritation she does not feel. She understands all too well the impulse to curl up somewhere warm and quiet and wallow. It hasn't done her any good and it's not going to help him either.

Her tone is enough that he listens – he sits up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. 

She throws the curtains open – the sudden flood of light into the room is half blinding and he covers his eyes. “Thanks for that,” he grumbles. 

She sits beside him, keeping a careful distance between the two of them. 

“You're worrying your mother,” she says. “If you're not bothered about yourself at least keep that in mind. She doesn't need to be punished.”

“She didn't need to drag you into this,” he mumbles. 

“Evidently she did.”

He doesn't say anything to that. She looks more closely at him. He hasn't shaved recently – likely not since they returned, she guesses. It doesn't look like he's done much else either – his clothes are wrinkled, his hair unkempt and unwashed. 

“When was the last time you ate?” she asks. 

He clears his throat. “You look well.”

She purses her lips. “I don't have a room to hide in all day,” she says. “And Rebecca would take issue with me moping all over her apartment.”

“That's good.”

“Honestly, Roy, if you needed something you could have at least called me yourself, rather than making your mother do it.”

“I'm fine,” he says, although he doesn't meet her eyes when he says it.

She puts her hand on his shoulder and he nearly jumps out of his skin. 

“Good,” she says. “If you're fine then I expect you downstairs in fifteen minutes, looking at least halfway presentable.”

He scowls. “Twenty minutes,” he says. 

That's a compromise she can make. 

  
  


  
  


Back downstairs, Riza finds Chris behind the bar, taking inventory of the liquor bottles there. 

“You look like you could use a good cup of coffee,” Chris says without looking up. 

Riza hesitates. Chris sets down her clipboard and the bottle of whiskey.

“Only if you've already made some,” Riza says. “I don't want to be an inconvenience.”

“One minute,” Chris says. She disappears into the back and returns shortly with a steaming cup of coffee. She sets it on the bar. “Cream, sugar?”

“A bit of cream would be nice,” Riza says, caught off guard by the unexpected kindness of the gesture. 

As she's stirring cream into her coffee Chris leans against the bar, leaving her checklist unfinished.

“I appreciate you coming here,” she says, folding her hands together. Her nails are immaculate – red so dark it's almost black, polished and filed. “I know it's a lot to ask of anyone.” 

It strikes Riza just how much this woman cares for Roy. He's only ever had good things to say about his family in Central and she has more than once felt jealousy at the thought of his loving home. Why had he wanted to study under her father if he had a place he belonged? She would have given anything to have the warmth and comfort he spoke of so readily. 

Speaking with Chris she finds it impossible to be jealous. 

Riza's voice is gentle. “I understand you're worried about him,” she says. “But this is going to take time.”

Chris nods slowly, exhaling smoke. “I told him not to go off and fight in that damn war,” she mutters. 

Riza smiles a little at that. “You're not the only one,” she says, thinking of her father. For once, that isn't painful but it could be because everything hurts if she looks too closely these days. 

Chris is just as perceptive as her nephew, it seems. “And what about you?” the older woman asks. “Are you holding up?”

Riza hesitates, uncertain how to answer that. 

The obvious answer, of course, is yes. She's doing better than Roy, at least, although that doesn't mean much. And yet no – she hasn't slept well in weeks and the shadows beneath her eyes give that away. 

“It will take time,” she says instead. 

Chris stubs out her cigarette in an ashtray and looks over at Riza. Her dark eyes are sharp and keen – Roy's eyes. “Well, if you find yourself needing anything, I want you to come to me. I might not understand what the two of you have been through but you shouldn't feel like you're alone.”

The unsolicited offer is spoken with the sort of unconditional warmth that Riza has never received and she has to look down at her coffee, blinking back tears. It's a kindness she doesn't deserve.

“Thank you,” she says when she's sure her voice is steady enough. 

  
  


There are footsteps on the stairs and both women look up. 

It's Roy. He's put on clean clothes and it looks as though he's splashed some water on his face, even if he hasn't showered. 

“Do you mind if I join you?” he asks, meeting her eyes with the question. 

She pulls out the chair beside her. 

Chris straightens, retrieving her clipboard with the inventory list. As she leaves she places a hand on Roy's shoulder, squeezing gently. 

“Thank you for coming,” he says once they're alone. His voice is stiff but it sounds more like the Roy she knows, as though the air is a little clearer. This room certainly feels better than that closet upstairs, bright and airy with morning sunlight.

“I'm not going to tell you you have to feel okay,” she says. “God knows I don't. But isolating yourself isn't the answer. We have to take care of each other.” 

He nods. 

“I mean that,” she says. “It's easier if you don't try to deal with it alone.”

Chris comes back with food – buttered toast and bacon and fruit, as well as a cup of coffee for Roy. She refills Riza's cup as well, pouring from an old kettle.

“Thank you,” she says. 

Chris just nods, giving Roy a very pointed look as though to say _you had better eat while she's here._ He acquiesces, picking up a piece of toast. 

“When do you open?” Riza asks.

“Not until afternoon,” Chris says. “You're welcome to come by sometime, if you want to see what it's like when there's actually people around.”

“I would like that,” Riza says. She realizes, after she's already said it, that it's true. 

“Roy never brings girls home,” Chris says. “It would be nice to have a new face around.”

Roy half chokes on a piece of toast. 

“I hardly think this counts,” Riza says cooly. “Considering he didn't invite me.”

Chris laughs. The sound is full throated and rich, the sort of laughter that their lives have been short on as of late. “I'll give you that one,” she says.

“Have you gotten the newspaper yet today?” Roy asks between mouthfuls of food. An obvious change of topic. 

“Oh that's the last thing we need,” Riza grumbles, thinking of the headlines. 

Chris hands over the newspaper and Roy bypasses the first page, flipping through as though looking for something specific. He breezes past the special interest piece, the classifieds, the obituaries.

The crossword. 

He lays it on the counter in front of her, like a peace offering. 

She can't remember the last time she did one of these – no access to such a small luxury during the war and she's been avoiding newsstands ever since she came back. Well over a year, then. 

“Do you have a pencil?” she asks Chris. The older woman provides one, freshly sharpened.

She looks down at the puzzle and then over at Roy. He certainly looks more alive, hot food and coffee performing a miraculous revival. She turns the pencil in her fingers, scanning down the list of clues. 

“You're going to have to help me with this one,” she says, moving her chair closer to his. “I'm out of practice.” 

He catches her eye and smiles – the expression like throwing open the curtains in a dark room. 

_ Easier if we do it together. _


End file.
